January 12, 2011

For those of you who still want to argue, straining against the evidence, that the terrible political rhetoric pushed Loughner over the line, let me help you. I've studied law for 30 years, and I know how to extract an argument using what little is available.

Ready?

Here goes...

The overheated rhetoric in America was so repugnant that Jared Loughner couldn't bear to engage with it. Alienated and left to his own thoughts, he became mentally disordered, leading to the massacre. If only the political debate had been more gentle and inviting, he might have watched television and listened to the radio, and then his mind would have contained more conventional ideas, precluding the insane, murderous thoughts.

AND: I was just talking with Meade about my (deliberately strained) theory, and he said that a young guy like Loughner would not have been drawn in by more politely stated political commentary. A marginal individual — especially a person with a propensity toward violence — would probably be susceptible to more aggressive, more vivid commentary. What did Loughner consume instead of politics? Wasn't it violent video games and movies? By contrast, the news — even the commentary pundits decry as vicious — would seem bland and insipid.

Now, I think he was psychotic, in which case, none of this explanation applies, but let's assume you want to work with the idea that he was a marginal citizen who might have been normalized if the community socialized him more appropriately with debate and dialogue. What could have reached him? Probably not some namby-pamby paragon of niceness.

245 comments:

Yes, but if all was sweetness and light that too might have pushed him over the edge. After all, when you know that something is terribly wrong, when the voices tell you that everything is wrong and yet THEY don't hear the voices what could be more maddening, hmmm?

The overheated rhetoric in America was so repugnant that Jared Loughner couldn't bear to engage with it. Alienated and left to his own thoughts, he became mentally disordered, leading to the massacre. If only the political debate had been more gentle and inviting, he might have watched television and listened to the radio, and then his mind would have contained more conventional ideas, precluding the insane, murderous thoughts.

Who cares even if Loughner said Rush Limbaugh personally told him to do it? Are we now taking explanations from paranoid schizophrenics at face value?

Lennon/McCartney are not responsible for the Tate/LaBianca murders because they wrote "Helter Skelter", no matter what Charles Manson said. Jodie Foster was not responsible for Hinckley shooting Reagan. And Berkowitz's dog was really just an innocent bystander and was not the mastermind behind the Son of Sam murders.

And Berkowitz's dog was really just an innocent bystander and was not the mastermind behind the Son of Sam murders.The “dog” was SATAN!!!! Good Yhwh, man where have you been? That dog caused it all! And even if McCartney and Lennon aren’t responsible for the Tate/Labianca Murders, I still find them guilty of many other crimes.

That was smooth Professor. Perhaps you should start an Althouse Foundation dedicated to the cure of advanced cases of boredom in political speech. Whatever they argue, you shoot them down (oops) like in an arcade game.

Even if he did listen to Palin, Beck and Limbaugh, that wouldn't prove their case. There are 300 million people in this country. If our climate of hate were pushing even just people inclined to commit acts of violence to commit acts of violence, it would be happening by the thousands, in every state and most counties. It would be bringing our country to its knees.

Indeed, the harsh language from the right is forcing millions of Americans - not just Laughner - to withdraw from their communities and the world. They turn off the TV and radio to escape that harsh world.

This isolation is driving fragile minds to lash back at a alien and unknown world. Deracinated Americans have no place to go.

Beck and Limbaugh are to blame.

We need a new cabinet department to deal with this: The Department of Come Back Home Americans.

oh, and just an observation, but if you want to do your old "i've been lawyering for 30 years thing"...and wow the socks off us with your rapier wit and abilities, it would do well to remember that rapiers have two edges and cut both ways and statements like "Now, I think he was psychotic, in which case, none of this explanation applies" might not carry the day.

Last night Chris Matthews showed SaraPac's bullseye map at least three times and showed her shooting an animal three times as well. If Matthews truly felt that the map was dangerous, would he have shown it? The left cannot be taken seriously about this.

A Republican county party official resigned because of pressure from Tea Party activists:

"I wasn't going to resign but decided to quit after what happened Saturday," Miller told the Republic. "I love the Republican Party but I don't want to take a bullet for anyone."

Miller, 43, had recently been re-elected for a second one-year term as Chairman of the Legislative District 20 Republicans. He was the first African-American to hold the position. According to the Republic, Miller worked for Sen. John McCain's re-election campaign last year, and came under pressure from conservatives who supported McCain's Tea Party-backed primary challenger, J.D. Hayworth. Miller said he'd been called "McCain's boy," and the Republic obtained emails circulated among party members calling him a "McCainiac with a penchant for violating the rules" and a "McCain hack." One detractor allegedly formed the shape of a gun with his hand and pointed it at Miller.

Who garners the more intense negative reaction - an enemy or a traitor? From what has been reported, it seems like he considered Rep. Giffords to have let him down. He felt betrayed by her dismissal of his incoherent question. He dismissed her as unintelligent. She was his representative and she didn't measure up. What more ammunition would a paranoid mind need than that? All those people jumping to the conclusion that because she was a Democrat he must have been her political opposite have not considered the whole picture. It's even more plausible that in his mind he was ridding himself not of an enemy, but of a traitor.

As I try to figure out how to reach conservatives with the idea that having a political party, a cable network and a very well-financed political movement constantly talking about shooting or killing or "beating to a pulp" political opponents is bad and not desirable and even dangerous, I encounter this nice job from Harold Meyerson:

The primary problem with the political discourse of the right in today's America isn't that it incites violence per se. It's that it implants and reinforces paranoid fears about the government and conservatism's domestic adversaries.

Much of the culture and thinking of the American right -- the mainstream as well as the fringe -- has descended into paranoid suppositions about the government, the Democrats and the president. This is not to say that the left wing doesn't have a paranoid fringe, too. But by every available measure, it's the right where conspiracy theories have exploded. [...]

As much of the right sees it, the government is planning to incarcerate its enemies (see Beck and Erickson, above), socialize the economy and take away everyone's guns. At the fringe, we have figures like Larry Pratt, executive director of the Gun Owners of America, who told a rally in Washington last April that, "We're in a war. The other side knows they are at war, because they started it. They are coming for our freedom, for our money, for our kids, for our property. They are coming for everything because they are a bunch of socialists."

Sadly we are beyond the point now where we can agree that threats of violence are inappropriate in political discourse. Or that weapons have no role in settling political discourse.

We cannot even agree on that anymore. Conservatives really do sound, if we take their words at face value, as if they think they have a right to take up arms against the rest of us.

Anyone who's been around a while has seen nuts like this before. What made them do it is something that would not occur to most people as all the out of the ordinary.

She didn't answer a pointless question. Anyone else would have shrugged it off. Trying to find a way to pin this on anyone - you might as well go after Ubermoronn as Rush or Beck - is a fool's errand, and it seems only fools wish to engage in it.

PS Now it comes out of Sheriff Dupnik (what a name)s deputies stopped Loughner that morning. Wonder what Alpha thinks, given the Dup is a Demo.

Before I speculate on what he watched or didn't watch, I want to know what was found on his computer. No one is that isolated that they are not aware of the violent political language that permeates our culture. For example, I spend some time in San Diego last week, where I learned that a women running for office who believes in some form of gun control now has to travel with an armed guard because of the death threats against her. How does one explain this away as one lone cook? Generating threats and fear is now common, and while I am not saying there is a direct link from one statement to this actions--for an unstable person this provides a background of noise to feed upon.

Wow this LD20 Republican County Party Chair who just resigned under fear of violence from fellow Republicans really undercuts your denials:

"Today my wife of 20 yrs ask [sic] me do I think that my PCs [Precinct Committee members] will shoot at our home? So with this being said I am stepping down from LD20GOP Chairman...I will make a full statement on Monday," Miller wrote.

If his house had been shot up he can be damn sure the Republicans would have blamed him.

To this purported High School friend, I'd like to know if he was in touch with Jared in recent years, if he is a partisan, himself.

He says they stopped talking to each other 2 years aho so it's very opportunistic to claim this is the final word.

Also, the guy contradicts himself. He says JAred had no interest in polityics but was taken with this Zeitgesit move. Well, that's a political movie and part of a (weird and paranoid) movement from it's own description:

While each film stands on its own with regard to content, the Zeitgeist Film Series as a whole has a dedicated social intent to create awareness about the world we share, the problems we face, along with what we can do to make it better as a collective species.

Sadly we are beyond the point now where we can agree that threats of violence are inappropriate in political discourse. Or that weapons have no role in settling political discourse.

Was there ever a point in history where we could agree on this? Or is it more true to say that violent rhetoric and warfare have always been a part of the human experience; and that the fiery rhetoric we see today is no different than it ever was?

Conservatives really do sound, if we take their words at face value, as if they think they have a right to take up arms against the rest of us.

AL; why do you keep up this charade that you are a voice of reason, as you yourself fan the flames of hatred, by demonizing conservatives? Do you really think any reasonable person here is buying your act? Or are you trying to appeal to loonies?

Palin, by her own admission, engaged in precisely the kind of relatively gentle and inviting debate that Meade thinks would have been ineffective in reconciling Loughner to the body politic even if he wasn't a schizophrenic.

Generating threats and fear is now common, and while I am not saying there is a direct link from one statement to this actions--for an unstable person this provides a background of noise to feed upon.

So why stop with political rhetoric? What about movies that advocate violence or terrorist acts? Books? TV shows? Music? MTV? Nothing metaphorical there, just oodles of examples of flat out violent imagery so how about we just cut to the chase and insist that it all be banned because if metaphorical ads are sufficient to push one over the edge, then none of us are safe after a showing of SAW IV or V for Vendetta.

let's assume you want to work with the idea that he was a marginal citizen who might have been normalized if the community socialized him more appropriately with debate and dialogue. What could have reached him? Probably not some namby-pamby paragon of niceness.

For example, I spend some time in San Diego last week, where I learned that a women running for office who believes in some form of gun control now has to travel with an armed guard because of the death threats against her.

I have to have an armed guard because all the Catholic Priests are out to kill me…It’s true because I SAY IT’S TRUE.

It's not the rhetoric directly, you see, it's the climate created by Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly, Fox News generally, Coulter, Malkin, and especially ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY, wait for it ...

⚡⚡♯PALIN 11!!1111¡¡!!11eleventy-one!!1♀⚡⚡☁⚡

It is the toxic climate these people create that affects perfectly ordinary people otherwise completely unaffiliated who don't even hear them and wouldn't listen if they did to breathe uneasily. And that's why these filthy bastards on the right must be shut down, and why you must shut up. And if you fail to agree with my righteous views, well then, you're all enabling bastards just like them.

Yes, I think it is reasonable to decry calls for political violence, of which there are many. Yes, I wish we could agree political leaders and pundits people should not call for people to be hurt, beaten or shot.

Conservatives will not agree to that.

I am really not "demonizing conservatives." I am just not sanitizing their record and ignoring the mountain of violent statements they have made.

I do honestly believe that guns have no place in resolving political disputes and should not be at political rallies.

Argument: The overheated rhetoric in America was so repugnant that Jared Loughner couldn't bear to engage with it. Alienated and left to his own thoughts, he became mentally disordered, leading to the massacre.

Counter-argument: The partisan rhetoric in America was so meaningless that Jared Loughner couldn't bear to engage with it. Alienated and left to his own thoughts, he became mentally disordered, leading to the massacre.

Since we have no facts to support either argument, I suppose the jury can flip a coin.

The fact that Loughner's manifest obsession with Giffords stretches back all the way to 2007 can mean only one thing, clearly: Sarah Palin's godlike mind-control powers place her on a par with LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven, at absolute barest minimum.

So why stop with political rhetoric? What about movies that advocate violence or terrorist acts?

Well, I'd also add Tosh 2.0, which is on Comedy Channel. They generate laughs at people being injured all the time.

I think these are all a problem for similar reasons that political speech encouraging violence and hate is bad. And it's a bad idea to regulate but a good idea to speak out against them.

And that's actually a good point. By the time someone reaches JArd L's in this society they are exposed to thousands of images of murder and violence on TV and movies. And these video games these days!

Cannot be good for the soul. Makes me accept the soft porn that's daily TV fare a little more as that portrays some kind of love and tenderness, at least, even as it cheapens it.

AlphaLibtard: As I try to figure out how to reach conservatives with the idea that having a political party, a cable network and a very well-financed political movement constantly talking about shooting or killing or "beating to a pulp" political opponents is bad and not desirable and even dangerous..

As I try to figure out how to reach AlphaLiberal with the idea that his continued molestation of little puppies is bad and not desirable and even dangerous...

There is nothing wrong with criticizing violent rhetoric and imagery. But it would be nice if people would criticize it when it comes from their side as well, if they want to be taken seriously.

However, using random acts of violence to delegitimize voices of opposition, will not be tolerated w/o a fight... I mean door-stop; (in keeping with the door-frame metaphor in Ann's post from yesterday... it doesn't work so good, huh?)

Well, I'd also add Tosh 2.0, which is on Comedy Channel. They generate laughs at people being injured all the time.

I guess the Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote are out too. No more anvil sales. Elmer Fudd better watch out as well, carrying a (gasp!!!) gun and trying to kill a waskally wabbit. Peta is going to be all over his ass. Oops.....to violent?

Or we might also consider the brandishing of truncheons at polling places as well--whatever the case, this pin the blame on the right wing (however defined) doesnt seem to be washing with the American public--they dont appear to be buying the "narrative."

"As I try to figure out how to reach conservatives with the idea that having a political party, a cable network and a very well-financed political movement constantly talking about shooting or killing or "beating to a pulp" political opponents is bad and not desirable and even dangerous"

I didn't know you were living in Nazi Germany. I didn't know Nazi Germany had cable networks. I didn't know you could travel through time. Perhaps it's like that "Star Trek" episode where the Nazis existed in an alternate timeline or something.

But in any event, until you establish your premise, that in America in 2011 there is "a political party, a cable network and a very well-financed political movement constantly talking about shooting or killing or 'beating to a pulp' political opponents," then the rest of your argument is a waste of time and a bunch of hot air. We might just as well talk about the rampaging hordes of meth-addicted broccoli stalks tearing through our streets and devouring our children.

Unless, of course, you're talking about the Democrats, and then clearly you've got a lot of work to do. So I'd get started right quick. Let us know when it's safe again. Thanks.

"In October, [Rep. Paul] Kanjorski [(D)] opined to The Scranton Times-Tribune about Republican candidate for Florida governor Rick Scott, saying, 'Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him.'"

Olbermann (Obama supporter) referencing Hillary Clinton: "Right. Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out."

So that's one from the party and one from the party's media machine. And then there are the numerous other Democrats/leftists cackling about laughing if Rush Limbaugh dies of a heart attack, threatening to kill President Bush, threatening to harm Sarah Palin, beating up a black guy selling Tea Party flags, biting off the finger of Tea Party participant, beating up and hospitalizing a couple leaving a Republican event. Not to mention shooting up a Republican congressional office, slashing tires on voter transportation vans, and generally being involved in all sorts of mayhem - vandalizing their own offices in an attempted frame-up, attacking a cab driver, attacking the Discovery channel, rioting at every Republican National Convention.

Yeah, they're the reasonable ones.

Oh, and what about the arson that burned down Sarah Palin's church. How much concern did you show about that?

I think these are all a problem for similar reasons that political speech encouraging violence and hate is bad. And it's a bad idea to regulate but a good idea to speak out against them.

Which is fine and dandy and if there is evidence Loughner was motivated by Palin or any over the top rhetoric from the conservatives, I will join you in condemning all those violent metaphorical images.

Right now the evidence leans to the fact he was simply a nutcase who didn't require much inspiration other than what his diseased mind could conjure. It would be refreshing if you and your side would have the decency to admit that rather than trying to score cheap points.

For example, I spend some time in San Diego last week, where I learned that a women running for office who believes in some form of gun control now has to travel with an armed guard because of the death threats against her.

So R-V, how about the folks in Oakland, lotsa crime there, but they can’t afford an armed body guard, no campaign war chest to pick up the tab, so how come they have to be UNARMED? In your universe it’s OK, to have a gun as long as you’re protecting someone who against guns? Or is it only the Political Class who merit protection, everyone else has to rely upon the tender mercies of the Oakland PD or hope they don’t become a crime statistic? Interesting….

I never bothered to go into comment sections to criticize the left when they used violent rhetoric. And I don't feel the need to criticize the right when they do so. It's not my crusade to rid the world of "hate speech". As a rule I rarely ever comment at all. (Hence my name).

But I will speak out against attempts to silence voices of opposition.

As for my calling you out, if you are indeed sincere, you do not present yourself as such.

My six-year-old girl was watching me play Bad Company 2 (multiplayer) yesterday for the first time ever. The only gaming she's ever done is the innocuous Hello Kitty type.

In the game, I was crouching down behind a boulder looking for long-range targets. I zoomed in on a sniper who was looking in another direction, but moved behind an obstruction. My daughter, who had up to that point watching quietly with a few questions here and there, blurted out, "DON'T SHOOT!"

I wasn't going to for a good reason, but I said, "why not?". "Because," she said, "you can't hit him and he'll know you're there if you shoot."

Who the hell are you, Alpha Liberal, to lecture the rest of us on temperate speech, when it was you who came on the very first thread Althouse posted after the Gifford shooting, foaming at the mouth accusing Sarah Palin of being a fomenter and accessory to murder based on some frickin' target symbols she had posted on congressional districts, not persons, districts?! What makes it A-OK for you, one of those everything is political all skewed up freaks if there ever was one, to go on the offensive lecturing the sane on sanity?

For example, I spend some time in San Diego last week, where I learned that a women running for office who believes in some form of gun control now has to travel with an armed guard because of the death threats against her. How does one explain this away as one lone cook?

One doesn't have to. Politicians, American and otherwise, have been receiving death threats and hiring bodyguards (or having the taxpayers hire them) for as long as there have been politicians.

On an amusing related note, the #1 Google hit for "San Diego candidate death threats" is... a mention of Sarah Palin getting death threats when she visited here in October.

The #2 hit is a Green Party candidate in San Bernadino reporting death threats by a Hispanic caller.

"Generating threats and fear is now common, and while I am not saying there is a direct link from one statement to this actions--for an unstable person this provides a background of noise to feed upon."

By the way, generating threats and fear has always been common. The more you put yourself out there in the public sphere, the greater the likelihood that you'll get threatened.

The first production that I wrote and directed, a two week production that was attended by 350 people, generated one electronic death threat and one direct physical confrontation.

You don't hear about the threats that people get because the police advise them (rightly) not to publicize the fact that they are receiving threats. The more attention a threat generates, the more likely it is that the sender will continue and that copycats will jump in.

So, in a way, you're right. But it's not crosshairs on a map that generates more threats or a climate of "violent" rhetoric, it's the publicity those threats generate that makes them more common.

If she's publicizing the threats she is receiving and the security measures she has taken because of them, your politician friend is making threats more likely. The people who send such threats are, in most cases, looking for attention and control. If they see that they can make someone with more power dance just by sending an email or making a call on a payphone...

Because he's blind to the actual, real violence committed by his side (bitten off fingers, beatings, etc.) that he honestly thinks he's on the moral high ground. Meanwhile there is still no case of a Tea Party person doing anything that qualifies as violence. They went to the polls and voted and won. That's not what he expected and not he wanted. And he's pissed. And he's afraid this is the only chance he'll have to display that anger so he's going to use it. Even though he's piling it onto the back of a paranoid schizophrenic who didn't even follow the news. You go to war with the army you have, even if it's a weak one. (Oooh, did I say something bad?)

AlphaLiberal said... I do pass judgment on you for things you say and write about public issues. More for the vacuous and unfounded attacks on people who disagree with you and the inability to have a rational conversation.

Plus the conservative hate, there's that. Lots of that.

Sorry, I forgot to include the date, but I knew this would come in handy.

Crack is right. He splits it up into all it's individual points, but he is correct.

It's a belief system. The Left believes the Right is responsible no matter what. No amount of reason, logic, or facts will change that belief.

To the Left the Right is evil and must be stopped by any means necessary. Violence and hateful rhetoric by the Left is not only tolerated but encouraged because the ends justify the means.

Since the Left believes their goals are ultimately beneficial, those goals must be achieved. No matter the cost, no matter if the majority oppose those goals. They know better, it's for your own good.

The Left has dedicated it's self to establishing a socialist utopia, and if someone from the Right gets slandered, or mugged or killed in the process, it's their own fault, they were standing in the way of Leftist goodness, but if someone from the Left is so much as talked about harshly, they are being persecuted by the forces of evil Rightwingers even when there is no evidence.

The Left has dedicated their lives to this beliefIt would be easier to convince a Christian there is no god than change a Leftists mind.

Alpha Liberal wrote:Incite violence? With words? I thought that was impossible?

It's not impossible, we just diasgree that it was done here by Palin. Nothing she said was any furhter out of bounds than what politicians have routinely said during elections. Elections are routinely by all sides and by punditry alike described using military metaphors. Battleground states, targeting states for takeover. Her reload was simply saying don't give up you have more ground to cover (another military term), just as her intial firing of a gun (the targeting of the various states, and not even the senators of said states) was similarly metaphorical. Just as Obama saying he would bring a gun to a brawl was metaphorical. But how do we know that he was influenced by her speech anyway. He could just as easily have been influenced by Kos's targeting of her for being a blue dog. Or he could have been turned crazy by watching The Sopranos, or any other violent imagery. You don't know him or his politics nor can you see into his mind, nor do you know if he ever saw the map which you say pushed him over the edge). Therefore it's a complete reach to suggest that you somehow know that Palin is responsible. That did't stop you though from all but accusing her of fomenting violence that led to death. And not the fact that he was a loony who had been targetting her since 2007.

Uh huh. So, sometimes, then, speech does lead to violence. As long as it suits the political needs of the Republicans, I guess. Otherwise, not.

Now in your sides case your rhetoric could lead to violence. You all but accused her of being guilty or an accessory to the murder of a child and a congresswoman and a judge. Then your rabid leftwing went on twittter saying how she should be killed. Essentially if this were the crown heights riot you found your jew and then you sent the mob out after them. You better hope that none of those crazed deranged people calling for her death, or on facebook pages talking about how they'd like to punch sarah palin in the face is actually serious with his threats.

There really is no doubt left in my mind that Palin is simply jerking around the left and the media (but I repeat myself).

The whole "blood libel" thing smacks of her 1773 comment.

She knows that those who hate her are going to attack her for any perceived missteps, regardless of whether they are real or imagined, so she throws out a word, phrase, or fact knowing that they will immediately assume the worst.

She is ultimately proven correct and not only does this endear her to the base but it makes her opponents seem that much hackier.

"Blood libel" refers to blaming the Jews for Christ's death. It was an act of anti-semitism and was innacurate on all levels. It was also rampant in Christianity. I find it interesting that Palin, a Christian, uses the term which harkens back to Christian anti-semitism.

She and the usual suspects (how did Ann Coulter not get invited to the party?) are smeared by the lower level progressives and blamed for a death in which they are innocent. Blood libel fits as a term just as 1773 was an accurate date.

Palin shows her understanding of the Left's intent and limitations by using terms and dates which are accurate but obscure, counting on their anger and ignorance to combine into a false accusation that reveals the hearts of the accusor.

Can't let Kent have all the fun. So here we go, an abbreviated list. Blogger is cutting off the length:

- July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how "liberals" are "destroying America," walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others.

-- October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama.

-- December 2008: A pair of "Patriot" movement radicals -- the father-son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, who wanted "to attack the political infrastructure" -- threaten a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, with a bomb in the hopes of extorting money that would end their financial difficulties, for which they blamed the government. Instead, the bomb goes off and kills two police officers. The men eventually are convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.

-- December 2008: In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear "dirty bomb" in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.

-- January 2009: A white supremacist named Keith Luke embarks on a killing rampage in Brockton, Mass., raping and wounding a black woman and killing her sister, then killing a homeless man before being captured by police as he is en route to a Jewish community center.

-- February 2009: A Marine named Kody Brittingham is arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate President Obama. Brittingham also collected white-supremacist material.

-- April 2009: A white supremacist named Richard Poplawski opens fire on three Pittsburgh police officers who come to his house on a domestic-violence call and kills all three, because he believed President Obama intended to take away the guns of white citizens like himself. Poplawski is currently awaiting trial.

-- April 2009: Another gunman in Okaloosa County, Florida, similarly fearful of Obama's purported gun-grabbing plans, kills two deputies when they come to arrest him in a domestic-violence matter, then is killed himself in a shootout with police.

-- May 2009: A "sovereign citizen" named Scott Roeder walks into a church in Wichita, Kansas, and assassinates abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

-- June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester named James Von Brunn opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, killing a security guard.

-- February 2010: An angry tax protester named Joseph Ray Stack flies an airplane into the building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. (Media are reluctant to label this one "domestic terrorism" too.)

-- May 2010: A "sovereign citizen" from Georgia is arrested in Tennessee and charged with plotting the violent takeover of a local county courthouse.

-- May 2010: A still-unidentified white man walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque and sets it afire, simultaneously setting off a pipe bomb.

-- May 2010: Two "sovereign citizens" named Jerry and Joe Kane gun down two police officers who pull them over for a traffic violation, and then wound two more officers in a shootout in which both of them are eventually killed.

-- July 2010: An agitated right-winger and convict named Byron Williams loads up on weapons and drives to the Bay Area intent on attacking the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, but is intercepted by state patrolmen and engages them in a shootout and armed standoff in which two officers and Williams are wounded.

-- September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. The man, 26-year--old Justin Carl Moose, referred to himself as the "Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden” in a taped undercover meeting with a federal informant.

Garage, I see a bunch of stuff about white supremacists. Where's the stuff about Republicans? And political figures? And media? They're the ones setting the climate, aren't they, but I don't see any listed? Or do you disagree with AL and his theory that Fox News is forever talking about beating up political opponents?

Only Sarah Palin could take a mass murder and turn it into self-promotion. And look-- she waited a whole 5 days! Five whole days!!! Was that self-restraint, or was that how long it took to come up with the catchy "blood libel" meme?

Most Lefties will find Palin's efforts to be in bad taste; Sarah seems to be selfishly only concerned with Sarah. But then the Lefties can reflect on their idea of Righties as lovers of violence and selfishness, and it will all make sense.

You Righties are overall pretty happy that this episode of violence has occurred in American politics, aren't you? It's what you wanted, isn't it?

Seems to me the only thing the current "list wars" prove is there are crazies out there on both ends of the political spectrum--And the tragic shooting in Tucson demonstrates there are crazies of no particular political persuasion--just crazy.

"You Righties are overall pretty happy that this episode of violence has occurred in American politics, aren't you? It's what you wanted, isn't it?"

Unlike you, we're not drooling all over it. So, no, I don't think it's what we wanted. And we're not the least bit happy about it. We're just very, very sad (and shocked, even though we thought we were beyond shock) that you are.

Speaking of shocking, read this from Jonathan Alter in the once-respectable (somewhere in the mists of time) Newsweek:

"Sad to say, if Giffords had died, she would have been mourned and soon the conversation would have moved on. But Giffords lives, thank God, which offers other possibilities. We won't know for weeks or months whether she can function in public. If she can, she will prove a powerful referee of the boundaries of public discourse--more influential, perhaps, than the president himself."

Newsweek ought to be ashamed for printing this tripe and Jonathan Alter ought to be disgusted with himself. She's lying in a hospital with a traumatic brain injury and he's scheming how to use her condition in his petty battles with his political opponents. Thank god she lived, because there's just so much more political hackery to be made from it. Does that just speak volumes?

I don't know if they have eyes. They certainly can't see what the people surrounding them have been saying, illustrating, and advocating the last 10 years. No matter how pervasive and disgusting it was.

She also contradicts herself. She says that acts like the shootings in Arizona “begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state,” but then says her critic's words "incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn."

Yep, just reason #umpteen spuktillion showing Palin’s really not intellectually qualified to do anything but be conservatives’ favorite GILF and a Fox contributor.

The accusations against Palin are coming fast and furious today. She stands her ground and she is "making herself the center of attention".She points out that she is being Blood Libeled by a false murder accusation and she is "anti semitic". She defends free political speech and she is "not intellectual enough to understand when free political speech must be be curtailed". It is like a Wimbledon Finals back and forth. But where are the GOP Establishment guys defending her? Maybe they are asleep.

What would have reached him? Start with these and some therapy. In-patient treatment would likely have been beneficial tooAripiprazole (Abilify)Clozapine (Clozaril)Ziprasidone (Geodon)Resperidone ( Risperdal)Quetiapine (Seroquel)Olanzapine (Zyprexa)

[Sheriff] Dupnik's mouth has done more to stoke self-inflicted ire against elected government clowns than anything the right could muster against him. Had the hyper-partisan Democrat been more in tune with his job than the media airwaves, the murderous, maniacal gunman might have been stopped.

Yes, death threats are leveled against pols of all parties and have been for decades.

Death threats have escalated since 2008. Especially death threats against Democrats.

These death threats tend, to the best of my knowledge, to come from individuals.

LEADERS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT CONSTANTLY CALL FOR VIOLENCE, SHOOTING, BEATING.

Leaders. Not some fringe person. Can you possibly conceive the difference?

We ask conservatives to tone it down, to stop invoking killing and they get their dander up and jump up on the cross and play martyr. If we ask them not to threaten us with violence, then they claim we're suppressing them.

Conservatives want to reserve for themselves the right to make threats of violence.

MOST conservatives refuse to say "hey, it's not right to make threats of violence, even if you are a conservative."

And that is very alarming. And after people are killed, or someone tries to kill them (Tide Fdn) you guys attack liberals for saying tone it down.

It's a political movement that really seems on the precipice of more violence, as Palin threatened today.

Did anyone notice that Palin was sitting at a desk in a presidential manner with the American flag standing behind her and that she ended her Talk to Americans with the " May God Bless America" phrase? She should be arrested for impersonating a Commander-in-chief. How long is it to the 2012 election?

Did anyone notice that Palin was sitting at a desk in a presidential manner with the American flag standing behind her and that she ended her Talk to Americans with the " May God Bless America" phrase?

Note the timing too! Obama is going to talk in Tucson later today, and it seems Palin needed to get in and set the tone and release her new meme in the wild... all while Obama is still on deck.

She's acting like a shadow president now. Expect more of this as we approach 2012.

"LEADERS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT CONSTANTLY CALL FOR VIOLENCE, SHOOTING, BEATING."

What planet are you living on? Prove it. You keep making that claim but you offer zero proof. The charge is ridiculous on its face. Repeating the charge over and over won't make it true. Show me a leader of the Republican Party that is calling for beatings. It's a simple request.

"Now, I think he was psychotic, in which case, none of this explanation applies, but let's assume you want to work with the idea that he was a marginal citizen who might have been normalized if the community socialized him more appropriately with debate and dialogue. What could have reached him? Probably not some namby-pamby paragon of niceness."

OK, I'll bite, Althouse, and just long enough to suggest that hard, back-breaking WORK goes a long way to "normalizing" young men with an over abundance of aggressive feelings, much more so than debate and dialogue.

It's high time we get to problem resolution for high unemployment, particularly for young men who suffer in much larger numbers than any other age group.

She also contradicts herself. She says that acts like the shootings in Arizona “begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state,” but then says her critic's words "incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn."

Klein is wrong.

It's consistent when directed at people who actually believe rhetoric incites violence. Refer to the Althouse post below.

For example, I spend some time in San Diego last week, where I learned that a women running for office who believes in some form of gun control now has to travel with an armed guard because of the death threats against her.

She also contradicts herself. She says that acts like the shootings in Arizona “begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state,” but then says her critic's words "incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn."

I'm curious as to how many of the outrageously outraged in this whole kerfuffle are actually leftists and how many are simply mobies attempting to help them self-destruct.

Although I suppose the real question is, given the idiocy spouted by a great many true blue liberals on this subject (apparently Lee Harvey was one of those rare conservative communists) would you be able to tell the difference?

Today's leftard: so well and truly beyond even any faintest hope of being adequately satirized, they practically come with their own endlessly looped Benny Hill theme music playing in the background! ROTFLMAO!!!

"It is not enough to say that Sarah Palin or losing candidate Jesse Kelly is to blame for the murder and attempted murder in Arizona today. All of the leaders of the republican party across the country are responsible. [...] Fox is America’s Radio Rwanda, and it is time for us to pull the plug on them. [...] Jared Lee Loughner was part of an American terrorist cell that is supported and financed by the American right. He was trained by this movement's media, political leaders and his peers. He was given a local assignment and told he would be a patriot if he acted. [...] Mullah Sarah issued the fatwah that drove this massacre. [...]" Etcetera, etcetera.

Alphaliberal lives in a world of self-refutation: If we conservatives really were the monsters he thinks we are, it would be irrational to think that suddenly we will "see the light" and agree to tone it down. If we are the reasonable people we think we are, why should we agree to moderate our speech when we haven't been the least threatening?

Who is the person who said that? Are they of the same stature as Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, etc, etc. You know, most of the leaders of the Republican Party.

It has to do with the concept of "proportion." Please look it up. Wikipedia will cover the basics just fine. It's a very helpful concept to navigate life.

Am I getting through to you at all here?

And yes, BTW, the poster is roughly right that "Republicans" are killing "Democrats,*" not just urging the same. The proof is on this page. * (not if those partisan labels are taken literal)

"Disordered? No. Virtually everyone, to a degree, is mentally disordered.The diagnosis for the 22 year-old will be "diseased." Mark it."

The diagnosis will be paranoid schizophrenia. One of the symptoms of this mental disease is disordered thinking. People who suffer from disordered thinking are difficult (no shit) to deal with in the real world because their world is not based on reality. You can't reason with them and you certainly can't make sense of who or what they fixate on.

In 2007, well before the succubus, Sarah Palin became evil incarnate to the left, Loughner went to a public event featuring Congresswoman Giffords and asked her a question which reflected his disordered thinking. To us and to her it was nonsense and unanswerable. To him is was not. TO HIM her answer was unacceptable. He thought she was stupid and rude and became fixated on her. Rush didn't do this. Palin didn't do this.

His history is the classic descent into schizophrenia, which generally begins in the late teens/early 20's: He was ok in his early teens. A little strange, but fun. This is, btw, the only time that I'm aware of where he is described by anyone who knew him as having any kind of political POV. He was described as a "left wing pothead".

A schizophrenic's incipient symptoms agitate them and it's not uncommon that they self-medicate. Loughner abused alcohol and smoked a lot of pot. He became stranger, more isolated. At this point no one who knew him mentioned any kind of political POV whatsoever. They did mention symptoms of disordered thinking. Talking nonsense, visual hallucinations, free-floating anger.

He acted like a hallucinating schizophrenic in college classes. He shouted nonsense. He wrote nonsense on his math papers. He also wrote nonsense on a conspiracy theory website, to the point that one of the other posters wrote that he sounded like a schizophrenic and asked that he please seek help before he hurt someone or hurt himself. But understand - to HIM he made perfect sense.

You CAN NOT reason with someone whose thinking is not based in reality.

I don't care what movie someone like this watched. I don't care that he was a self-described atheist and "In God We Trust" on currency pissed him off. I don't care that he was convinced that the gov't was exercising mind control over people through grammar in the constitution. I don't care that he was against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I don't care that he never listened to talk radio, disliked and never watched TV news and never wrote about or talked about any of the right-wing boogey men (and women) who the left wants to silence. I don't care that he didn't vote in the election he was supposed to have cared so much about based on his (made up) association with the tea party. He was incapable of rational thought. He couldn't be helped by reasoning with him and even listening to a hate-filled loon like Keith Olberman wouln't have made him worse. He needed anti-psychotic meds.

Lefties: NO ONE who knew him after the latter part of his high school days EVER has attributed a political POV to him AT ALL. No. One. Not his friends. Not his professors. Not his classmates. Not the people in his neighborhood.And he never mentioned - AT ALL - any of the people who the left insists are guilty of murder because their thought rays and a map on a facebook page he never saw made him shoot all those people.

The only people who are attributing a political POV to this guy is the political left. The reek of desperation is overpowering.

Lefties: NO ONE who knew him after the latter part of his high school days EVER has attributed a political POV to him AT ALL. No. One. Not his friends. Not his professors. Not his classmates. Not the people in his neighborhood.And he never mentioned - AT ALL - any of the people who the left insists are guilty of murder because their thought rays and a map on a facebook page he never saw made him shoot all those people.

The only people who are attributing a political POV to this guy is the political left. The reek of desperation is overpowering.

"That Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida," Mr. Kanjorski said. "Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him.

Ace of Spades HQ has some good reportage on the "Memorial service" tonight. Obama and his team have seen fit to use the occasion to distribute promotional t-shirts and sell commemorative trinkets. His Presidency is all but over.

LEADERS OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND "PROGRESSIVE" MOVEMENT CONSTANTLY CALL FOR CANNIBALISM, BABY-RAPING, BOILING OF CRIPPLED GRANDMOTHERS INTO SOAP-MAKINGS, REFUSAL TO RETURN OVERDUE LIBRARY BOOKS.

Hey, I figure if the resident leftards can squat and squeeze out log after rancid log of this sort of stuff -- sans even the most cursory play-pretend attempt at actually backing it up with anything more concrete or verifiable than an airy wave in the general direction of Wikipedia, mind -- I might as well play, too.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.Any of you other guys remember the fun we had almost getting Bill Clinton impeached?Would have worked too if that meddling bitch Hillary hadn't exposed us.

The way you guys freak out over such a simple request is pretty telling.

That reminds when Napolitano and the DHS report came out warning of increases in anti-government plots from skinheads and neo-nazis - and Limbaugh and Malkin and the right wing blogs howled with outrage. Thinking the report was about them! Even though the report never mentions the words "conservative" or "Republican". The right has played footsie with the anti-government/birther/gold standard/conspiracy cranks on their side and they know it. [not that there is much separation from the cranks and leaders of the party]. They whipped up all the conspiratorial nonsense about minor health insurance reform legislation, encourage those hopelessly and massively misinformed angry mobs of idiots to crash townhall meetings, then when a brick does go through a window, or a death threat does come in, stand back and say "Well it couldn't have been from us!"

garage - indeed. Why did Rush/Malkin get so upset about that DHS report UNLESS they have spiritual cause with the ultra right wing. They pretend they are center-right, but in their hearts they are flaming anarchists.